Rebecca Wilson

Bad loans weigh on Spain’s banksBarcelona - The level of bad loans weighing on Spain's banks hit a new record in June, official figures showed on Monday, a sign of persistent weakness in the bailed-out sector.

Doubtful loans rose to 176.42-billion euros, or 11.61 percent of total loans, six billion euros more than in May, the Bank of Spain said.

The June figure topped a previous record high ratio recorded for November 2012, which was 11.37 percent, according to adjusted figures from the bank.Last year, the euro zone agreed to finance a rescue of Spain's banks, swamped in bad loans since a property bubble imploded in 2008 plunging the country into a double-dip recession.

Spain, the euro zone's fourth-largest economy, has so far withdrawn 41.3 billion euros from the euro zone rescue loan.As a condition of the rescue, Spain set up Sareb, a “bad bank”, to buy bad assets from lenders and sell them for a profit.

Spanish banks' bad loans ratio fell in December 2012 for the first time in 17 months as banks began offloading troubled assets to Sareb, but it has since risen again.